We’ve all been there: You wrap up a powerful, high-energy, face-to-face quarterly meeting. Your leadership team is aligned, initiatives are clearly defined, and everyone enthusiastically volunteers to lead their respective actions.
You walk away feeling unstoppable… until you get back to the office.
Now, weeks later, you find yourself having to push every team member, individually and collectively, just to get the agreed-upon initiatives to budge. It’s frustrating, energy-draining, and makes you wonder: Why the resistance?
This is where a fun concept from psychology can shed some light.
Introducing: “Musturbation”
Coined by the influential psychologist Albert Ellis in the 1960s, Musturbation is his term for the human tendency to hold rigid, absolute, and irrational demands on ourselves, others, and the world—using words like “must,” “should,” and “ought.”
In the context of our post-QBR frustration, the “Musts” are likely manifesting as:
- Your Internal Must: “They must execute on these initiatives without me having to chase them, because they agreed.”
- Their Potential Internal Musts: “I must focus on my daily urgent tasks first,” or “This initiative must be perfect before I show anyone the progress.”
The Leadership Lesson: Stop Musturbating, Start Facilitating
The moment we believe our team “must” behave in a certain way, we replace clear, flexible facilitation with rigid, frustrated demands. We assume that agreement in a meeting translates directly into smooth, effortless execution, but that is rarely the reality in complex work environments.
Instead of operating from a place of frustration (“They must do this!”), leadership needs to:
- Acknowledge the Obstacles: People return to a whirlwind of existing demands. The quarterly initiative is often a “should-do” competing with daily “must-do’s.”
- Translate Agreement into Action Systems: Did you define the first next step? The accountability mechanism? The weekly check-in?
- Replace Demands with Preferences: Shift your thinking from: “They must do this for the company to succeed.” (Rigid, frustrating) TO “I strongly prefer they do this, so what flexible system can I put in place to help them succeed?” (Flexible, empowering)
If you’re tired of pushing, stop assuming the “must” and start designing the system that enables success.
What is the most common “Must” you hear (or think) in your leadership meetings?